Of Forests and Trees. Elijah.

Sh.


Write the phrase "What Are You Doing Here, ________?" on small pieces of paper or index cards, filling in the name of each of the members of your group in the blank. You will pass these out toward the end of your group time.




Thaw

• What does Fall mean to you?

• What has most stayed with you from Sunday?
• Would you consider yourself a person who willingly enters the silence of God, answering tough questions about your true self, your true motivations, or are you someone who avoids it?

Read

• 1 Kings 19:9-14
• Thoughts?

Leader note: Many of the rabbis wrestled with this passage and felt that, rather than the "still small voice" many of us have grown up talking about here in verse 12, that the text instead is communicating in the ancient hebrew a "sheer silence". The New Revised Standard Version captures this idea, while most other translations, likely in order to remain logical about the sound being something heard (versus silence being not heard) hang on to the quiet-but-not-quite-silent idea. This may be a topic for discussion in your group, but this study, and the Sunday message, are predicated on the idea that the minority of Rabbis had the right idea.

• Moses had served on this mountain long before. The wind and earthquake and fire all harken back to the powerful display of God's presence the Israelites had seen as Moses went to receive the Law and the covenant renewal. Would it be disappointing to come all the way to the mountain of God and be faced with sheer silence, and questions about your real motives?
• Why does Elijah answer the same question the same way twice?

Leader note: It would seem that if God asks the same question again, God wasn't satisfied with our answer the first time. It would go well to truly reconsider even our most sincere reasoning if asked to give an answer for it twice.

Read

• John 4:13-20
• When Jesus starts to deal with her real issues, how does she respond?
• We can use theology or doctrine to distract from the work God is really up to in our life. What else can we use?

Leader note: This woman, who tries to shift the discussion to religion when asked questions about her real life, is very likely a wounded, disappointed soul who has been passed around and beaten down. Don't think of her as a woman who shops men and can't commit over the long haul  She would have had no such power in the first century. She has been divorced, or widowed numerous times. And now the man who is with her won't marry her for some reason. She has no roots. She is really at the mercy of a patriarchal society. Jesus isn't likely accusing her as much as trying to get her to be real about how hard life is, and about her pain.

Discuss

• Why do we avoid the sheer silence even though it's there we can finally get real?
• As a group, watch this scene from the Matrix. In it, the character named Cypher is betraying his friends to the sinister Agent of the Matrix. A sophisticated network of computers and machines have taken over the world, keeping humanity asleep and feeding off their biological energy. But in order that the sleeping humans remain good sources of power, their sleeping minds are placed in the Matrix, an incredibly detailed simulation of real life. Cypher, and his friends, have awakened and are trying to save the world. Cypher comes to believe waking up to what is true isn't worth it.

Read

• Hebrews 4:12-13
• Thoughts?

Leader note: Remember, the "word" of God here is the the "Logos". This isn't simply the Bible. It's the Wisdom of God. Christ, as in John 1, is the Logos. Christ is God's Wisdom and Message. As you think of this passage, give the text its breadth.

• Do you think of God as primarily building you to make you what you are, or cutting through and subtracting things to make to what you are? A combination?
• What does your personality and age and upbringing have to do with your answer?

Apply

Leader note: Pass out the cards you made which ask each member by name, "What are you doing here?"

• How might this phrase help end an argument, or deescalate your sense of upset at something political or relational, etc?
• How might this question, if answered honestly in the moment, help you begin to see how often you are trying to relieve pain under the guise of something else?
• How might your group help you begin to enter into sheer silence, listening for this question of God's, to get to what you are really trying to do, or avoid, or cover over in fear?
• Consider this question a mantra this week. Allow God to ask it in the silent spaces you will pursue. See what you learn about God and yourself and share it with the group next week.